The Durmstrang Circle
by Xerg
Summary: With the Triwizard Tournament underway, Hermione gets entranced by the cleverness of Viktor Krum. Delving into the dark secrets of the Wizarding World together too deeply, Hermione's thirst for knowledge proves to be stronger than her fear to break rules. Torn between what is right and what is necessary, morality and progress, Harry and Viktor, how will Hermione decide?
1. Hermione's unromantic seduction

**The Durmstrang Circle**

_Since i took this text mostly from Victor Krum's diary, using only a few additional pensieve memories, and english is not Krum's native language, the "Durmstrang Circle" includes a lot of grammatical and vocabulary mistakes._

All Copyrights of the world of "Harry Potter" are in the hand of whoever bought it. To make things clear: That isn't me.  
_No high expectations, no disappointment. Have fun!_  


* * *

**Chapter 1: Hermione's unromantic seduction**

Hermione was sitting in the library again, staring at a book without reading it. Outside of Hogwarts' beautiful gothic windows a december storm brought more rain and darkness over Scotland, clouding her mood like the sky.  
Usually nothing was as relaxing for her as a good book, but today, just about everything was wrong.

First of all, the book she read was not a good one. Surely, the content itself was great, the masterwork of an undoubtedly brilliant man, who spent more than a century researching one of the most enigmatic and complex topics of magic - without ever wasting time on teaching it. Therefore it was certainly not the cleverest idea to make it the school book about magical theory for first class children. Now she was in her fourth year and still didn't get what the man tried to tell her, even though every year another part become clear for her. Lets say one thing about Hermione J. Granger, she's persistent. Her main problem was that for every question solved, she got another two about what she actually just found out. Idly she watched a picture of Ron which was used to mark the page she had tried to read the fifth time already today without understanding anything.

Which lead to the second problem. The picture was a constant reminder of what became known as "the accident" to a wizarding world which loved to give everything a mysterious touch. Ron Weasley, selfless hero he was, died a glorious death on the battlefield. He sacrificed himself for the greater good in a truly epic game of chess. While all beaten chess pieces reconstructed themselves, probably for being played by the next person, Ron never recovered. Tragic, but true. Well, analyzing how the game went from her memory, Hermione now was very glad Ron had been lucky enough in the first place to bring them to the other side. She would always remember him, she promised herself, certainly not for his chess-skills, but for being one of the two friends she made. And vice versa: Since Harry and she were his only friends, she felt it was their responsibility.  
Anyway, the most upsetting fact for Hermione was that nobody seemed to be found guilty of his death.  
The Ministry of Magic of course tried to get Dumbledore to retire after the death of one of his students, but legally their hands were tied. Obviously it was enough in the wizarding world to be warned that a horrible death awaits the one who enters a certain corridor to clear the one laying deathly traps at a school from all accusations...  
Especially if the story for the public and even his parents was that their son stupidly played in a prohibited part of the castle which was still under construction, causing a wall to collapse on him. Hermione shuddered when she remembered the voice of the Headmaster in her own head, reminding her to keep quiet on the real events.  
There were enough other witnesses to prove Ron had been warned like any other student. Case closed.

And finally, the Triwizard Tournament seemed to be the only thing on Harry's mind, and if all other tasks would be as hard as his fight with the Hungarian Horntail, Hermione couldn't even criticize him for it. Still, the Yule ball came closer, and still nobody had invited her. Since she was underage, she couldn't go herself.

* * *

What was supposed to be her pretending the repetition of the fundamental laws of magic was disturbed by a certain Viktor Krum. Loosing a swarm of giggling fan-girls as soon as he stepped into the library and braving himself, he began to execute his masterplan to invite the girl he laid eyes on to the Yule ball. Since she seemed not to care much about flying, for all the emotion brought by it, he had to try a different approach. The last two times they met they didn't exchange a word in the sense of communication at all, just the usual unnecessary politeness only used by teenagers. Even now his first question was if the seat was taken, as if there were no other places in a library at friday evening, and her answer was that this seat, what a miracle, was really as empty as it looked like.

Usually Hermione had nothing against the quiet, studious Durmstrang student who came often to the Hogwarts library to learn from all the knowledge it could offer. But today Hermione noticed that the first thing Viktor did was hanging his heavy, wet fur coat over his chair,and started raised eyebrow before quietly whispering:  
"You wonder why i wear a fur-coat even inside this castle? Funny thing is, most of Durmstrang students are used to better weather. For example we have far more sunny hours per year in Bulgaria then Hogwarts can ever hope to have, so for us this school uniforms are a blessing. Also, as you surely know, we don't heat our school for not magical purposes." Viktor winked. "Probably because of global warming."

Hermione giggled in a girlish way she didn't even knew she could and let go of the book she had pretended to read. Happy about the distraction, she watched Viktor expectantly. Realizing she was warming up, he continued:  
"Really, if you take into account that its possible to freeze to death at normal temperature of 68° Fahrenheit..."  
Hermione interrupted him: "Mr. Krum, i am deeply sorry to have to interrupt you, but i feel obliged to tell you that just because we are speaking english doesn't mean we measure things in Fahrenheit. Regardless of the actual climate zone Durmstrang is situated in, don't you think 20° Celsius is to warm for freezing?"  
Now he had her attention, the ice was broken. Over discussing death, but Viktor didn't care much.  
"Please, simply call me Viktor. Well, in our classes we learned several ways a person could die, and hypothermia is one of them. Most problematic isn't the surrounding temperature, but your own. But enough of spoiling the mood.  
You know, you should really visit us once for lunch in winter, when every student tries to make very, very slowly a potion containing as much tasty meat and vegetables as possible."  
Hermione, trying not to outright laugh about his obvious irony, exclaimed: "Come on, if that is true, i will call my firstborn child Hugo! The official statement is just that you only light fires for magic, right? So what kind of central heating do you use in winter in northern Scandinavia?"

"First of all, i doubt Durmstrang is really in Scandinavia. Could be Kanada, Greenland or a complete magical place altogether. Since our students come from all eastern Europe, or better said all former Soviet Union, my guess would be that the school is located in northern russia. Anyway, maybe they shifted the whole place. Several times, probably, the paranoia of our headmasters is legendary. There is a reason for the castle to be unplottable, you know?"  
And, smiling to have found someone so smart, he answered honestly:  
"And we use water from hot sources in a complicated pipe system. Please don't tell anyone."  
"Promised.", Hermione agreed, beaming brightly for guessing correctly.  
"By the way, what was you reading there? Magical Theory, by Adalbert Waffling? Karkaroff himself privately admitted once he didn't understand him. Therefore he issued another book. I can lend you one exemplar of this Magizhen Teorija", he offered and passed her his school book.

"That's really kind of you.", Hermione gladly accepted. Looking at the cover, _Магичен_ _теория_, she shook her head and gave it back, a bit disappointed. "Sorry, i can not even read the cyrillic alphabet, let alone understand which language is written with it."

"Well, maybe we can find you a translation." Viktor smirked, "Surely it has the disadvantage to be written by a less clever, or lets say less fanatical woman, but at least she didn't commit suicide because, to quote Waffling:  
_ "I refuse to live in a world where Accio :anything: gives me whatever i summoned! Whether the magic reads thoughts or understands english, both concepts are too scary to live with! It all makes no sense, nothing makes sense at all!"_.  
I fear since Magizhen Teorija has an introduction into the Dark Arts, it might be prohibited here anyway."

"I won't take anything from you which has something about Dark Arts in it. How can you even offer something as vile as that!", Hermione suddenly nearly yelled at him. She hadn't forgotten about Riddles Diary, and what it supposedly had done to poor Ginny Weasley. There were only a few people who didn't worry about the cheerfull Hufflepuff, who switched for her 3rd year to Beauxbaton, panicked declaring that "Hogwarts is not a school, but a deathtrap!". Impressive enough that she found the strength to come back here for watching the tournament, especially after what happened to her brother...

"Hey, are you ok?", a slightly confused Viktor interrupted her train of thoughts.  
"Let me tell you about the Dark Arts, which seem to trouble you so immensely. There are no Good Arts, just Neutral and Dark ones. Most of Spells, Potions and Rituals we know are so-called "Neutral Arts", from raising plants like Mandrake roots, which have a fatal cry, over learning how to turn animals into something useful (Hermione flinched) or to set things on fire. Defense against the Dark Arts deals with things like immobilizing and disarming curses.  
So what are the Dark Arts? Obviously not all what hurts is dark, even the simplest levitation charm can do that.  
Dark Arts are all things which come with a moral prize, may it be the bit of extra power only achievable by the strength of a negative emotion like in the Unforgivables or something far worse. But even for them there are exceptions, cases when they can be used legally. The old argument is that not the wand is evil, nor the spell, but the wizard casting it. For example, what are Cutting curses? Fleur Delacour of Beauxbaton Academy would tell you that these belong into the kitchen. Bellatrix Lestrange might tell you they belong to the Dark Arts."  
He didn't let an agitated Hermione interrupt him. "I know that this argument is not a strong one, actually.  
Maybe you will agree on the other one i learned: The Dark Arts are always changing, adapting and treacherous. Maybe i shouldn't even tell you about that, it is not really a subject to be discussed with women.  
By the way, thats the reason for Durmstrang to be an all boys school. Nobody would expose their teenage daughters to the temptation of Dark Arts, if they can also learn at Beauxbaton how to put on make-up, household-charms and to speak french." He didn't really know where the French men went, but for all he knew probably not all blonde, long-haired Beauxbaton students were girls.

"What?", Hermione exclaimed shocked. She couldn't believe this was happening to her, in the end of 20th century.

"You don't need to be so outraged about it, it's more a cultural thing. We are convinced that our girls are to precious to fight, and should protected as good as possible. That's why it is the man's task to study Dark Arts, how to use them to fight his enemies and protect his family.", Viktor hurriedly tried to explain.

"Precious? Especially the Muggleborn ones, right?", Hermione asked sarcastically, filing the possessive phrase "our girls" away for later questioning.

"Ah, of course you are curious about that. Even though we all oppose the one whose name you shouldn't carelessly speak, Durmstrang refuses to accept Muggleborn students. Hear me out, and you will understand why.  
In Durmstrang the Dark Arts themselves are tought, not the defense against them. Every pureblood wizard and witch grew up being educated by their parents in such a magic environment that there is not much to be offered by the Dark Arts to him. He can do magic, after all, and there is no much advantage a Hand of Glory has over the Lumos-charm, you see? It's like that with nearly every dark spell, there is always an alternative.  
And to not accept Muggleborns prevents our Aurors from hunting them down later. Another big problem is that the Dark Arts were never really researched, as far as i know. Most wizards are content with that, but don't you agree that half-bloods have a greater curiosity? We see magic as something as normal as you see planes, which are a miracle for us. We don't need to evolve, our political structure, our economy, that all is running perfectly since centuries.

Let me not tell you about the history of Durmstrang, for it is late already and the story of a school someone as horrible as Grindelwald could come from deserves more time. Maybe we can meet once more for it again.

Seeing her eyes on him he finally asked the sudden non sequitur:

"Would you attend me to the ball, Hermione?"

And captured by his salutary monologue in pure fascination, Hermione said "Yes, teacher!" without thinking twice.

* * *

_Thus started the most unromantic relationship since Abraxas Malfoy married his son Lucius to Narcissa Black by a well-hidden article in the general terms and conditions of a contract with Cygnus Black III._

_Hope you enjoyed reading it half as much as i did enjoy writing it!  
Please let me know your opinion, it might stop me from writing badly.  
____I had troubles to find the right genre for this story, so: sorry._  
_If you really like me to not continue, point out why Ron had an important part and his untimely death in first year destroyed the timeline completely._..


	2. The Good, the Evil and the Careless

******Chapter 2:** The Good, the Evil and the Careless

**The Good**  
Dumbledore was deeply troubled.  
Sitting in the headmasters office, he checked a complicated silver instrument measuring the lifetime left to its owner. What he saw didn't cheer him up, vice versa. It wasn't fair, he still had so much to do! He had worked so hard to protect Harry Potter, the worlds only hope, and now the boy's life was in peril once more. Being as powerful as he was, protecting Harry secretly in the fight against the dragon had been easy. Worrying were just his future tasks, underwater he would be on his own.  
And there was the endless past, full of heroic retreats and heavy losses. The Order of the Phoenix lost nearly all members now. The sacrifices mounted up, and sometimes he wondered if his strict pacifistic approach was **- no**.  
Listening the enthralling song of Fawkes, he didn't regret, for doubt was a sign of loosing faith in the good. His decisions in the past had been right and the future would be great, he knew it. The greater good shouldn't be questioned, that was the eternal song of the phoenix. He enjoyed his song the most in all its useful abilities, and was glad every day he heard it. Even though (or maybe because) it reminded him permanently of its last owner: Grindelwald.

* * *

**The Evil**  
The Dark Lord was deeply troubled.  
His current state reminded him far too much on how much he depended on his Deatheaters. Without their help, he could control lowly animals or unborn children. Weaker than a ghost he was, even when he took over such a vessel, and that was not how he had planned to spend eternity.  
Worse still, the list of his allies (currently: 3) was much shorter than usual.  
Severus Snape was as useful as always, collecting vital information right under Dumbledores nose. He had proven incredibly value in Voldemorts first attempt to take over Great Britain: Whenever he had reported an isolated or otherwise vulnerable member of the order, Voldemort sent as few of his force to deal with them as possible.  
Like that, whenever Albus Dumbledore decided to show up, he could torture the unsuccessful Deatheaters later instead risking his own defeat by the man who beat Grindelwald. Peter Pettigrew was the only one weak enough to be allowed to care for him in his current tender form.  
Crouch juniors mission was as simple as endangered. To set up a portkey under the nose of three headmasters while trying to be permanently polyjuiced was the easy part. To make the pathetic Potter boy win the contest was where the difficulties began. Voldemort wished he could say he had his best man working on that, but truth was he had decided on the only completely loyal one who wouldn't turn into a rat and run away at the first sign of danger.  
Trying to recollect the fate of his other servants, he realized that an advantage of the Order of the Phoenix was that there you could make cheerful group pictures to remind your children and grandchildren what a hero you was in the good old times, when the grass was green, the public transport tickets cheaper and you still had all your teeth. The copy given to Severus Snape was hanging quite long in Voldemorts Headquarters, with a red pencil to cross out the fallen enemies hanging next to it. Voldemort laughed coldly when imagining to have such picture of his own Deatheaters hanging next to it, crossing out the faces of traitors by the very same red pencil. If secrecy wasn't a primary necessity, he'd do it just for the fear it would spread among his followers.  
Voldemort remembered how Pettigrew killed the Muggle on his orders, right when the old fool came into his arms. And he remembered the promise of power laying in this murder.

* * *

**The Careless**  
Hermione was deeply troubled.  
Meeting Viktor had changed her life fundamentally. First they met at least once per day in the Hogwarts library, exchanging their vast reservoirs of knowledge. Hermione had thousands excuses why she did it.  
Because she learned a lot from him, because it was great to speak to an equally intelligent and interested person, because she was happy to have been invited to the ball and so on. Truth was, she was infatuated with him.  
That's why she agreed to visit him once and was sitting now in his rather dark room in the Durmstrang Ship, watching openly burning candles dripping wax on the wooden floor. Even if it wasn't a snowstorm outside,  
the porthole wouldn't have lightened the room much. The room itself was decorated very strangely, like two persons were fighting about the decoration. Unmistakable the designer had planned this all as a luxurious place for the biggest star of the country to stay in, with as much velvet, gold and bibelots as such a place demanded.  
But Krum had adapted all this to his rather spartanic needs. The only sign of preference among other students Hermione noticed in his personal belongings were the books from Durmstrang library he obviously was allowed to take back to his apartment.  
On the one hand Hermione was glad that Viktor had this room for himself and nobody would disturb them.  
On the other hand she was last time alone with a boy in a room in her 4th class at muggle school and could only imagine the kind of rumors the giggling girls accompanying Viktor usually would soon invent and start to spread.  
Blushing she stopped that thinking when realizing that she hoped some of this rumors would come true.  
Viktor, without any introduction, pointed her to a chair and gave her a book, when she sat down.  
"Introduction Into The Dark Arts by Hasdrubal the Heretic", Hermione read. "Sounds promising."  
She remembered the name from her classes in History of Magic. Binns once had mentioned his noteworthy involvement in some Goblin uprising, secretly starting it and robbing, disguised as Goblin or as Auror, from both parties as much secret knowledge, valuable artifacts and gold as he could carry. Once more Hermione was proud for keeping attention to every detail in class, and of her unrivaled memory, but noticed the uselessness of that information anyway. Should she really open a book written by such a person? She still could go back, still could tell Viktor she cared more about Quidditch. He would understand - and probably never respect her, her fear whispered.  
Pearls of sweat build on her forehead while she was torn between the two most important things in her life: Obeying rules and gaining knowledge.

"So, welcome at my humble home. You look really great today.", Viktor greeted her. "First of all, I'm very happy we can speak absolutely freely here. This ship is not only territory of Durmstrang, for all legal purposes it is Durmstrang. So don't worry about that book being prohibited for you, it's all fine to read it here."

Hermione asked with slightly trembling voice: "Tell me Viktor, what do you know about the Dark Arts and Hasdrubal the Heretic? Is he the one known for his treachery to Goblins and Wizards alike?"

Viktor answered, after thinking shortly,: "I'm sorry Hermione, but the history of Goblins and other lesser races is not taught at Durmstrang. What we know for certain about good old Hasdrubal is that he liked to cover all his traces. There are at least five different claims of Aurors to have killed him - over a period of three centuries.  
His nickname he got from not using the Dark Arts to destroy, but to steal and hide. Funny enough it was given by other dark wizards, who copied his texts anyway, because in their usefulness they were unique. Soon other works were attributed to him, and since there is no mentally sane wizard who could write an equally accurate book about the Dark Arts, we use this textbook as if it was written by one person."

Hermione nodded, writing down a note to research that man in Hogwarts library.

"As for the Dark Arts, i promised you in our first meeting already to enlighten you. Of course I can only tell you what I learned from my teacher in Dark Arts, but since my studies in Durmstrang are nearly finished, that should be sufficient. My teacher was a very old man, who went by the name Tulosba Dnamein. Whatever he did for life, most likely he was an Auror, now he is retired and spends his free time writing parking tickets to muggle cars."

Hermione was dumbstruck. Was he sarcastic again?  
Smirking under her questioning gaze, Viktor continued:  
"First thing in class was to explain us his hobby. It took a longer version than the one i tell you now, because the class contained only purebloods. Anyway, his words were, as useless it is to fight against wrong parking muggles, as useless is it to try to root out the Dark Arts. He said that the Dark Arts can be anything, if they want, but anything can become Dark Arts, if you want. The Dark Arts are more like a state of mind. They are closer related to occlumency then to any other form of magic. It's all about intent, you see?  
Whenever you have the choice between doing right and doing wrong, and you decide for doing wrong, you can hope for the treacherous support of the Dark Arts.  
So what are the benefits of this way of casting magic? There are three main points:  
Firstly, there are some effects which can be only provided by the Dark Arts. None of these effects are beautiful, but they are usually highly efficient, especially designed for combat.  
Secondly, the Dark Arts let spells work without shouting any phrase, some even without complicated wand movement or without a wand. The advantage of being that much faster and unpredictable then your opponent should be obvious.  
Thirdly, there is power. If you want to destroy and don't exactly care how, you can tap into a huge reservoir of power. It's the most mysterious of all benefits. The question is: What makes a wizard or actually any human powerful? Training. Like I train by making sports exercises around the lake nearly every day to stay in top form for professional Quidditch, I could also turn an alligator into a quite precious handbag, wristwatch et cetera daily to become a master of transfiguration. Or I could do minor, normal or major evil acts to train the Dark Arts.  
Do you begin to see the problem? Then lets sum up the dangers which come with the Dark Arts.  
We talk about a class which encourages anything amoral from injuring to shoplifting, from demonstrating ignorance and racism to mass murder. No other magic is so much influencing human behaviour, and no other magic is so hopelessly unresearched. We don't know so many things about it yet, especially since the Dark Arts are very alluring to the researcher and nobody who mastered them wants to share what he found.  
Beauxbaton and Hogwarts prohibited the Dark Arts for that reason, making every british and french researcher start from sketch again. Under normal circumstances and due to their nature, practitioners of Dark Arts are very asocial people. To get them work together is harder then to get a Slytherin to marry a Gryffindor. The houses of Hogwarts can unite against a common enemy, I think. For someone trying to master the Dark Arts, everybody else is an enemy. It explains the paranoia of aurors, too.  
Did you see the "Potter stinks"-badges some of your fellow students wear? Could be a subtle, minor way to train the Dark Arts. Did you hear ever a friendly word from Professor Kakaroff? I didn't think so, nobody did since many years. He started as a student, trying to enhance his magical potential by learning the Dark Arts. But soon he found out that you won't be able to stop whenever you like to, that is the main problem. You get addicted by them, or maybe just by the power. That is how the way to become a Dark Lord starts. At his peak in power, He-who-named-himself caused so much destruction by the Dark Arts that his power grew incredibly, making him able to wreak even more havoc.  
But that leads us to one last point: The Dark Arts always take more then they give, and they are highly unreliable. Take the book with you, its charmed to look like a compendium of Durmstrang History. You can read it without any danger. To use the Dark Arts, you need to focus on all what's bad in you; and you are pure as a rose in the first ray of sun in the morning, so don't worry."

"If you say it's totally safe, I'll read it. I trust you.", Hermione said and looked Viktor deep in the eyes.

Curious about the content, she immediately started to read the introductory chapter and was surprised to actually find the most scientific structured book about magic she encountered yet, even though she nearly lived in the library. When it became late in the evening, she took one wizarding picture with his autograph from a stack as a reading mark and packed the book into her bag.  
"I need to be at the dormitory before curfew.", Hermione explained. Gentleman he was, Viktor lead her back through the now calmer weather to Hogwarts. At the entrance to the castle, Hermione pecked Viktor to both cheeks. He embraced her and whispered into her ear: "See you tomorrow at my place again, my rose."


	3. Straying from the Path

******Chapter 3:** Straying from the Path

Having said the password ("Balderdash") absent mindedly, while recapitulating her meeting with Viktor in mind, Hermione entered the Gryffindor common room. It was late already, so only Neville was reading some book at the fireplace, a blonde girl, who yawned heartily when Hermione spotted her behind a mountain of parchment, wrote still some homework - and suddenly a certain Harry Potter jumped from his seat, letting the book he held fall to the floor carelessly, and ran directly to her, lifting her and twirling her around once while shouting: "She said yes!"  
Confused, Hermione asked: "Why?"  
Seeing Harry's face expression, she corrected herself: "Who said yes to what?"  
Harry answered by incoherently telling her nearly all what happened that day to him, and Hermione completely failed at all in seeing the connection between his choice of lunch with the weather and a catchy song he insisted of humming for her. In the end, she was forced to ask him quite drastically to come to the point, threatening to otherwise just go to sleep.  
Sobered, Harry sorted his thoughts: "So as i told you, it's about Cho! Cho Chang! She agreed to be my date for the Yule ball! Can you imagine that I was the first to ask her, even though she certainly is the most popular girl from all Ravenclaw, if not from Hogwarts? I saw her just stepping to the schoolyard in this horrible snowstorm today and I just thought _Now or Never!_, so I followed her and when we had crossed the yard, suddenly just I was there and she was there and i complimented her on her hair, which seemed to be a mistake due to what the weather did with it, but she laughed and when I asked her to come with me to the ball, she just agreed! Then it was that I just noticed a group of giggling girls stood around us, obviously they awaited her, so I went away before it became to awkward for her, but still it was so romantic..."

"I'm so happy for you", Hermione interrupted his rambling, trying to hide yawning behind her hand.  
Suddenly his mood darkened. "I'm so sorry for you, that you won't come to the ball. You are my best friend, so of course I should have asked you first. And don't lie that you're not a big fan of balls anyway, because you see..."

"Harry, I'm glad to not have to turn your invitation down. I was invited yesterday already.", Hermione cut him off again, "And I'm really glad for you. Cho is clever, being a Ravenclaw and all, even quite successful in your favorite Quidditch. Let's talk tomorrow about it, ok? I'll go to sleep now, good night.", she tried stop any further conversation before he got a chance to break into a song about Cho's pretty almond eyes.

"Of course, of course, see you tomorrow then." Hearing Harry's a bit disappointed answer, Hermione stepped up to the girls dormitory. Gladly noticing that her classmates were sleeping already, she finally went to bed and closed the curtains. She had learned so much today, kind of got a boyfriend and a new book full of rare knowledge.

* * *

No wonder Hermione couldn't fall asleep, having so much on her mind. Giving up on trying, she cast the Lumos charm and continued to read the "Introduction into the Dark Arts". It wasn't dangerous after all, Viktor had said.

The first chapter she flipped through, having read it at Viktor's place already. It had been full of warnings like:  
_Be reminded in any class, but with special emphasis in the Dark Arts, that experimenting on your fellow students is not "just a little bit of fun", but a felony. Remember that Grindelwald was expelled from Durmstrang for this.  
_

Hermione had copied this warning to a parchment and underlined it twice. She remembered how the Weasley-twins were expelled from Hogwarts for the very same reason and refused to make a similar mistake. Proceeding with reading, she noticed that Viktor had added a comment to the warning: "Or don't be found doing it."  
She dismissed it as quote of their teacher and once more wondered what kind of person would retire from practicing the Dark Arts to teach it. Curiously she read the table of content again:

Chapter I: Introduction by the Board of Education, Ministry of Magic of Bulgaria  
Chapter II: Nature of the Dark Arts  
Chapter III: History of the Dark Arts  
Chapter IV: Current known area of persecution of practitioners of the Dark Arts  
Chapter V: Training the Dark Arts / Mentor program  
Chapter VI: First steps to the Dark Arts

Remembering the problems which she discussed with Viktor, Hermione opened the book at chapter five.  
To her surprise, the only thing written there was: The training of the Dark Arts will be covered in a book for advanced students. If you are really interested in learning them, ask your teacher for the state certified mentor program. Unsanctioned teaching and studying of the Dark Arts is punishable by death. You have been warned.

Relieved about that, Hermione went back to the table of content, deciding to proceed with Chapter two.  
There she discovered that Viktor told her obviously more then this introduction could cover. The original texts of Hasdrubal the Heretic were funny to read, mainly because of his ancient language, but also because he saw Dark Magic as an alive being. His descriptions seemed to fit more to a spoiled little sister than to a way to use magic.  
The most interesting new thing Hermione learned was that not two users of the Dark Arts used the same magic. Millions of ways lead to the Dark Arts, and every character sooner or later found special spells, rituals or potions especially attractive to his modus operandi. But any strength the Dark Arts bestowed upon their practitioner, they would always combine with a weakness.

The third chapter was more interesting to read because there were only very few original sources of Dark Wizards.  
Strangely enough, when people got a Dark Wizard down, they traditionally didn't search his library for his diary to find out if the reason he went dark was his childhood, or if he left any other explanation of his deeds to posterity, but burned them along with him. History was written by the winner, and until now the Dark Wizards had lost as regular as a clockwork. Surely, there were people like Herpo the Foul and Hasdrubal the Heretic exerting power and fear over centuries. Pieces of their work spread across continents, so there was at least some information. But how easily they were forgotten in other places was shown in Great Britain, where students were prepared how to fight Boggarts instead of learning to defend themselves against the Dark Arts.  
When Grindelwald appeared, they immediately branded him "the most evil" of all previous dark wizards. But already his successor Voldemort was after not even an decade of terror regarded as the most horrible dark wizard in history ever. Sure, the 70's were an horrible, but still ridiculously short time. Although the count of victims was nearly impossible, it was a good guess that Grindelwald was responsible for more death and destruction then Voldemort could ever hope to achieve. While Grindelwald had built an huge fortress, Nurmengard, and governed there over a vast part of Europe and partly even Asia in the name of the "greater good", Voldemort was just a pitifull terrorist who had to let his victims vanish at night, torturing them and not being able to establish any form of government.  
Of course the second strategy instilled more fear into the population, spreading the message that nobody was safe, but the Dark Arts wanted to govern. Only someone "Heretic" could use them for not destructive means and only a short-tempered fool would use them only for destructive means.  
The disadvantage of the historical section was that there were several authors working together, trying to cover all history and all the world, letting the whole chapter look chaotic and like a parody. While Grindelwald and Voldemort took a lot of space naturally and were quite accurately described, the further the authors descended into the depths of history, the shorter the entries became. An exception was the last page which dealt with a group of eastern witches, each of whom took on the name "Baba Jaga". It was not clear when this tradition began, but still some kind of power seemed to come from it (or maybe woman with that power would choose that name for unknown purpose, another author argued), for sometimes still in the present an old woman with that name and superior knowledge of the Dark Arts was said to turn up. Their numbers were especially problematic because oblivators couldn't find them all, so muggles knew of her existence.

The next chapter, "Current known area of persecution of practitioners of the Dark Arts", contained just one huge map to be filled by the student manually. Most of it were left white, while some countries like Canada, Poland, the U.S.A., Ireland or Great Britain were marked as "ppp" (prohibit public practicing), countries like Bulgaria, Ukraine and Germany were marked as "safe".

Finally Hermione opened the last chapter, which contained the first steps into the Dark Arts. It was a conglomerate of several introductory steps into learning the Dark Arts of several different dark wizards, even though all were claimed to be given by Hasdrubal the Heretic.  
Quite disappointed about seemingly simple advice at first, .

1. Think yourself. There is no higher authority than your own mind.  
2. Question things. Anything is worth thinking about.  
3. Be carefull. People won't like you studying the Dark Arts. But as you know, people don't like studying at all.  
4. Don't wear black. Not even "ironically". You will be found out immediately.  
5. You know there are people only dragging you down. You don't need them.  
6. Study well! You need to study until you can do what is required perfectly. The Dark Arts are unforgiving.

It took Hermione half an hour to decipher the last part of text with which the book closed, so realistically it was made to look like the real ancient text it paraphrased:

_"These shall be the last words of Hasdrubal the Heretic, grandmaster of the Dark Arts. Riches i have gained beyond compare, magic wrought above understanding, a life i lived longer than most mortals. __After all, it seems my wealth was as fleeting as my art and my health. So_ if you now look at this parchment, taken from my dead body, then know there is nothing as happiness, wealth or immortality in the Dark Arts. Beware of them, for they are treacherous and deceiving."

In the explanation beside it the text was claimed to be found when Aurors brought down Hasdrubal the Heretic in 1232. As far as Hermione remembered, the last public text of Hasrdubal came from 1644, and not even once he had signed anything with the name his enemies had given him. Obviously forged, Hermione decided. Probably already in baroque times, the whole text sounded to much like "_Memento mori_", all in all absolutely unlikely to be written by somebody who spend his life stealing and hiding. She shivered. Was it just her imagination or did it really become colder after she thought this? Too tired to realize she just for the first time considered to be more clever then a book given by authority to her, Hermione was startled by the noise of several ringing alarm clocks.

Opening the curtains, a ray of sun fell upon her, making her regret spending the whole night to finish that book. Now she would have to survive a whole day without having slept. She couldn't fall asleep in her first class, Transfiguration, that was sure, and Potions was also no alternative. History of Magic was tempting, but she had so many questions to ask professor Binns that she didn't know where to start.

* * *

There were more nice ways of getting up in the morning then to the animated chattering of Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown about their make-up and upcoming Divination class, Hermione thought. She soon learned that there were also even worse ways when both stared at her with pure envy in their eyes.  
Fastly she tried to escape their questioning by being first in the bathroom for showering and then at the Great Hall for breakfast. But of course the students of Hogwarts, always united in their love for gossip, had had enough time to discuss Hermione's absence the previous evening, which hadn't happened as unnoticed as she wished. Everyone seemed to know about what happened the last evening, and who didn't pretended so by drawing his own conclusion about her current exhaustion. The wild stories about the romance in the relationship between Viktor and Hermione would have stopped immediately if somebody had witnessed one of their meetings. Whenever the one spoke, the other listened quietly and just got quill and parchment to make notes of the most noteworthy points. Instead of arguing about whatever jealousy a normal couple sooner or later experienced, all their fighting was about theories of wizards usually dead for centuries already. As an international star, Viktor should have known better than to feed this gossip by complimenting Hermione and getting her to his room the next day already again. As a gentleman, he didn't think twice about this obligation.  
Long story short, Hermione felt the boys looking at her belly as if they expected her to be visibly pregnant and the girls sending her poisoned glares of envy. Only a few knew she had studied with Viktor previously in the library together; the public opinion was in favor of the rumor that they met first time when Krum just casually asked her out and she shamelessly went along with him. Tired to repeat the same answers to the people brave enough asking what actually happened and even more of the whispering people who didn't but had their own theories, Hermione hurried along to Transfiguration class.

* * *

In transfiguration Hermione was haunted by Viktor's sarcastic "to transform animals into something useful".  
If she wasn't so afraid to be the laughing stock of the whole school for the rest of her life, Hermione would confront Professor McGonagall about it directly. Nearly four years Hermione had carelessly watched as under the stern gaze of the professor students did their best to experiment on animals. No, not even to experiment, but to torture them; there was no scientific interest in, for example, turning hedgehogs into pincushions. To make matters even worse, there were not professionals working, but children. Their partly transfigured "things" showed sign of life and object, it was sickening. On top of that there was not one wizard-raised child in the class who knew before what a pincushion was. Reparo was such a simple and common spell that most children even were challenged to understand the sense of a needle. Hermiones logical structured mind screamed when she tried to hold back the questions:  
"What is the purpose to teach someone who could repair a dress with a simple spell to turn a living being into an object helpful, but not irreplaceable in sewing? By the way, we are living in the late 20th century! It is far more easy to find a pincushion in Great Britain then an alive hedgehog! Did you care or even know that their population declined from 36 millions to 2 millions in the last 40 years?!" (Since 2013 there are less than a million, by the way.)  
Hermione felt seriously sick and thankfully professor McGonagall, noticing it, sent her to Madam Pomfrey. After what felt like being checked for any illness known to magic, Hermione was excused from all classes officially for the day and unofficially until she had slept at least 10 hours. Furthermore Madam Pomfrey insisted she should take a certain women's medicine "just in case". To weak to protest, Hermione took all given to her and went back to her dormitory. Still feeling dirty for every animal she ever transfigured, she reached the portrait in front of the common room. Slowly she gave the password, first time really thinking about it. With Harry and Ron, she never doubted that people like Draco Malfoy shouldn't be able to visit their dormitory. But what about the unity of houses? This was not a military area, which needed to be protected from the enemy by a code word like a dugout. Or was it?

* * *

The reader may forgive me for not mentioning the "lectures" Hermione hold for Krum in length.  
These talks, mainly about Muggle science, their culture from modern music to ancient greek philosophy and specific problems of Ancient Runes, Viktor Krum wrote down on several rolls of parchment, laying on the authors desk now. For a not pureblood wizard, these "Muggle Studies" should be common knowledge. Interested pureblood wizards, who bought a copy of this text at Flourish&Blotts, are kindly advised to purchase at the same place the fourth volume of the "Muggle Studies"-series with the title "Secrets of Science - Serioulsy stupid or Splendidly stupefying?" by Arthur Weasley, current price just 1 Galleon and 16 Sickles.

* * *

_To all people disliking Cho Chang because they know her only from the movies or traumatized from loosing her boyfriend Cedric: Until now she is a normal teenager, clever enough to be in Ravenclaw, pretty enough to be noticed by Harry and talented enough to play seeker in the House Cup. __In short, she is much more than just the promise of a normal life Rowling intended Ginny to be for Harry. Be glad for him. If you don't like how Harry behaved, try to not fall in love.  
_

_By the way: No Fred Weasley (4 Weasleys down, two to go) around to show Hermione the kitchens of Hogwarts, no reason to found __S.P.E.W. yet. House Elves will be discussed later, I promise.  
Like anything magical they are more than they seem to be, and may one day rule the world...  
_


	4. The Shark among Wizards

******Chapter 4:** The Shark among Wizards  


Hermione finally had just time to ask herself a few quite important questions, like: "What happened? How did I start from being a rule-abiding know-it-all and end up studying the Dark Arts all night and even worse, kissing a boy (or rather, if you took his age into account, a young man)?" Luckily all she needed to fall asleep was just to think about him and imagine his face, seriously telling her about some magic theory or another.

The next days were spent in routine, learning alone at Hogwarts in the day and learning from Viktor in the evening. On some occasions, Hermione prepared some lecture for him, too, and he learned from her.

She was a prodigy, learning everything "just in case". He worked hard on the topics he deemed to be "useful".  
Their priorities couldn't be more different, and therefore they could perfectly educate each other. As much as Viktor claimed to know about theory of magic, most of it was quite simplified for practical use. But he had an incredible repertoire of exotic spells Hermione never even heard of, even if a lot were designed for dueling purposes.  
Naturally their adverse characters lead to disinterest in some field the other loved.  
While Viktor excelled at flying, of course, Quidditch was only once discussed between them. Hermione completely failed to see any rational sense of the game, like Viktor couldn't believe someone even knew that ancient runes existed, let alone studied them in the current century. Also only once, Hermione gave him a basic overview what that subject meant, and he immediately decided it was worthless. He copied it down anyway, for her sake.  
Another problematic point were the Dark Arts, which fascinated Hermione. Not the evil acts itself, or the power coming with them, but that there was a large field of magic obscured by superstition and millenia of persecution.  
The excitement she felt was unparalleled: She was the only scientist really studying the Dark Arts.

It was their last meeting before the Yule ball, and like usually without much more of an introduction than the mandatory compliments, Viktor started his lecture in the scientific style Hermione loved so much:

"Topic of my talk today will be a fundamental aspect of our wizarding society, its organisation.  
Everyone has the possibility to just purchase a muggle-book with a map containing the borders of their nations. Nothing like that exists in our world. So tell me, what do you know about the international wizarding world?"

Hermione hurriedly stated the facts: "The main institution of the international wizarding world is the International Confederation of Wizards (ICW). From all countries participating in the ICW representatives are elected. Representative can only be a (human) wizard (or witch) who is not too young or old and of good standing." Hermione blushed: "I don't remember when this changes happened, just that they never were needed yet.  
So details of election are found in national law. Country in the original sense of the ICW founding statute is every country participating in its founding. Later candidates need to prove they have an own independent government with fully operational law enforcement. An aditionally requirement is since 1692 the employment of a professional oblivator team to uphold the Statute of Secrecy. The ICW is lead by the Supreme Mugwump. He is elected for life. The first Supreme Mugwump of the ICW was Pierre Bonaccord, the current one is Grand Sorcerer Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Why do you ask?"

Viktor was impressed. Not about her knowing these facts, but that she quoted a whole page of a book she probably read years ago word by word, forgetting only the footnotes. Ignoring her question, he continued his talk: "So the countries which send representatives in the ICW are the ones who founded it. Only problem is, we barely know of half of them that they still exist. Muggles and Wizards had to live through several wars in the last century, leading to the restructuring of a lot of borders. Nations rise and fall, and the wizarding world doesn't necessarily copy that movement. Furthermore, wizarding ministries can be destroyed without muggles ever noticing.  
So tell me, what was the most important action the ICW did?", Viktor asked nearly rhetorically.

"They were the ones who signed the Statute of Secrecy and enacted it in 1692.", Hermione answered immediatly,  
"Actually all countries seem to follow it, so all seems to be well."

"And what do you think that Statute of Secrecy meant for both worlds, the one of muggles and the one of wizards? Just imagine: All cooperation stopped. We still try to sort out who was hit harder by that, but i assure you both sides were crippled horribly. Certainly you noticed the difference in sheer numbers between our worlds, indicating that the gap in progress grows exponentially. I'm talking of things such as the Astronomy Tower of Hogwarts.  
It would be a great part of an exhibition of a Museum for Muggle Science! For Astronomy of our times it is pretty inaccurate and therefore obsolete. On the other hand, if you think of medicine..."  
Viktor threw her a calculating glance.

Medicine! Hermione shuddered. She didn't want to know, but her unsatisfiable thirst for knowledge forced her to process that information. There were potions to regrow bones, and still the world was filled by amputated people. People on both sides suffered from illnesses laughed about by the other. It made her sick.

Looking at the suddenly very pale witch, Viktor continued, while pacing up and down the room.  
"As I see, you understood the implications of that step. Than lets continue with something else, shall we?  
How about history? What do we know even about the wizarding world in Britain? Not enough, that's sure.  
First of all, our schools are not as ancient as one might think from all their legends.  
Hogwarts was founded in the first millenium, which gets us to the interesting question:  
What were the dark ages of Magic, the time before organized teaching?  
All we know from history is that in 1294 was the first Triwizard Tournament, so then all three schools as we know them today existed. It's still possible that there are more schools. Even if they can not have spells to repel wizards like we can repel Muggles, they could be out there somewhere.

Hermione, who loved his monotonously droning voice, hated to interrupt him but felt that she had to:  
"Wouldn't the ministry of magic notice that?"

Viktor patiently explained: "For all we know, if they have own schools, they could also have an own government. Lets not speculate on how they are governed, ok? To think that they are more advanced then us is as depressing as to think that they are even more behind us.  
What do you think Barty Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, is doing when there is no Triwizard Tournament to organize? He is trying to find wizard communities who "got lost", in a war, coincidentally or by their own choice.  
You know that the Leaky Cauldron and the Ministry of Magic are quite well hidden, but you also know why?  
There was and is always the danger of some unsuspected attack. Like our ministry is hidden, so could be others. And we can not even begin to speculate about their intentions. There could be an huge legal system we never heard of, especially if they have as efficient oblivators as we do.  
The same is true for whole wizarding villages, vanished from maps as their desperate inhabitants united their strength for huge Fidelius charms. There are the Parasites, integrated into Muggle society and knowing just enough magical tricks to never need to work again.  
Anything aside from that are rumors which can not be proven or denied. To be doubted already are the ancient and permanently new appearing claims of people literary hiding in the underground, leaving the world above to fighting among itself while secretly building their own empires. And of course there are the ridiculous sounding rumors of flying castles, settlements on the moon and tales of islands which sunk with all their population, who started a new, merfolk like life on the bottom of the sea. How convenient that there are no places mentioned where to search for them, isn't it?"

Hermione smiled, encouraging him to go on, so he did.

"The main problem is, all we can do is magic. The muggle technology isn't working around magic, which leads to a number of interesting problems for us. Probably also for them, too, but you are the expert in that area, so you can tell me about it next time."

Hermione beamed proudly.

"We can only use old, specially prepared cars, because electricity of normal models doesn't work when magic is cast near them. The same is valid for the steam engine of Hogwarts express and so on. It is such incredible waste, but the experimenting on muggle artifacts is laughed at and experimenting on muggles is outright prohibited.  
So maybe Voldemort is right, and we need a revolution, reformation or whatever. Maybe its to late for an re-union, and we split into different races already. Then Muggles could be integrated into society only like house-elves..."

"Stop that! Whatever Voldemort wants to achieve, he's wrong! He tried to kill Harry, killed his family - actually all he did was killing, torturing and destroying!" Hermione shouted outraged, "Don't even start thinking he could ever be right!" Under her gaze, a vial filled by a potion started to shake, to boil and, when she noticed it and with a tiny smile forcefully pointed with her index finger to it, finally exploded in a shower of acid and glass.  
A small glass shard graced Viktor's forehead, letting a drop of blood run down from his brows. Hermione was shocked into silence, while Krum stared at her in surprise. Then the "Dragonslayer of Albion", how his classmates had nicknamed him only half-jokingly after his first task, smirked. Obviously he found a natural talent.

But before he could comment the incident, their lecture was suddenly interrupted. A prefect reported that the headmaster required Hermione to meet with him, something about the second task. Without apologizing or even bidding him farewell, Hermione left with her feelings in turmoil.

* * *

The next day, Viktor stood at the ice-cold lake, together with Fleur Delacour, trembling of cold and fear for her sister, a Cedric Diggory, whose artificial smile for his fans betrayed his worry about Angelina Johnson, his Yule Ball date, and an apathetic Harry Potter who obviously still couldn't grasp what was going on and actually searched the tiers of the grandstand for Hermione.

Viktor was quite self-confident, but knew he would have had to train more for the transformations which should allow him to breath and move easily underwater. Following Hermione's suggestion, he had decided to turn his lungs into the ones of a sea-lion and replace his hands and feet for its fins. Two partial transfigurations were tricky, especially since he wasn't a master of transfiguration to begin with. Teaching Hermione about the Dark Arts had also let him nearly completely ignore his own studying. At least it was repetition training and, as far as he remembered, not illegal if not used to permanently injure another champion. Probably nobody would notice that what he did was Dark Magic, anyway. He feared for Hermione, kept down there in the freezing darkness.  
He needed to save her and therefore he needed more power. Unpredictable were the Dark Arts, and usually the results achieved through them were insulting the aesthetical sense of the average wizard. He put his life on the line in more than just one sense here, he realized. He risked persecution by Britain law, the end of his international Quidditch career and expulsion from Durmstrang. And if it went horribly wrong, his relationship, life or - Well, he shouldn't think too much about it; he needed the support badly and could only hope nothing too bad would happen.

Firstly he noted when quoting the transformation formula quietly and performing the necessary wand-movements more forcefully than delicate, that the change was to sudden, to fast and to painful. Which was worse, it was neither the intended parts of the body nor the intended animal. Instead of transforming his hands and feet into sea-lion fins, strange grey skin turned the space between his fingers into agile webs. And contradicting his purpose of simply enhancing the capacity of his lungs to the efficiency of a sea-born mammal, his breathing seemed to simply stop. With a gurgling cry he remembered that the Dark Arts were about intent mostly. And that training them didn't require teaching in a classroom, but performing evil acts. Recently he talked to much, caught by the fascinated big brown eyes of the dedicated student his girlfriend was. Under excruciating pain he tried to remember any evil deed performed the last week, but came up with none. Only holding Hermione's hand, being kissed by her - then he stopped thinking about the past completely. Another thing about the Dark Arts was that you could always offer them something, and they would take it (and probably more than you intended to give).  
"Blood", Viktor thought, "I offer you blood. I'll destroy all in my way. I just need the power to do so!"  
He heard his wand clatter when it fell from his grotesque hands, then he trusted his instincts and let himself fall to the lake. The grey layer of skin spread over his arms, covered his shoulders and face. There was no way of screaming when the pain didn't stop, but intensified. All bones in his head seemed to bend in unnatural ways, to grow sharp where they weren't supposed to and bend where they shouldn't. Finally his new skull ripped through the skin as if it was paper. Someone in a silvery swimming suit and long blonde hair chose that unfortunate moment to dive just next to him. Whatever Fleur saw in this moment, nobody would ever know. All she told was that she was attacked by Grindylows and had therefore to retire from that task. Nearly suffocated Viktor wanted to follow her, but some kind of rage overcame him and drove him straight down, letting him breathe the water as if he never had a need for air. The obstacles placed seemed a child's game for him now.  
He cut through the Grindylows with teeth designed for tearing flesh, the merfolk fleeing when he descended on them in a cloud of blood. He tore open the shoulder of one passing by too close, relishing the fresh, fishy taste. Viktor fought the instinct to hunt them down like the predator he had made himself and instead focused on what they had guarded. Unnaturally pale and lifeless Hermione, his treasure, was bound to a column.  
A few carefull bites to the ropes later, which required all his concentration to not hurt her, he finally hold his Hermione in the arms and shot like a rocket straight to the surface.  
"I'm first! Full points for speed!", he registered in the back of his mind. When he reached the surface of the lake his form changed back to human - under the serious stare of an awoken Hermione. There were points given, and Viktor didn't care. There was some commotion about Cedric Diggory, who came back a while later, his girlfriend secure and smiling for the audience, and still Viktor was more busy to summon his courage to ask Hermione a very important question. The chance presented itself when Harry appeared, carrying Cho Chang and Gabrielle Delacour with him.  
The discussion of rules and who would get the prestigious, but in the end quite useless Goblet of Fire, didn't matter to Viktor anymore. He had found a nice place, under a tree at the shoreline and asked Hermione:  
"So, actually, I'd like to invite you to Bulgaria next summer and I'd like to ask you..."  
"I'd love to come," she said, embracing him, "and I love you!" she whispered into his ear, kissing him passionately.

* * *

_Whenever I follow Hermione in her pursuing of the Dark Arts, I feel the urge to change topic of the story to "Drama".  
Or to "Romance" even. I hope both won't be necessary.  
_

_Thanks for reading this story.  
_


	5. Engaging Enemy

**Chapter 5: Engaging Enemy**

Even though Viktor and Hermione wished the moment at the lake would last eternally, their precious time was limited. Viktor's classmates wanted to celebrate their champion, and Harry finally realized his second best friend (that was how he wanted to introduce her to Cho, at least) seemed to be missing. Kissed by Fleur and rightfully scowled at by Cho, he had decided to escape. When Harry finally found Hermione, he was just in time to overhear the last part of her conversation with the man who saved her from the lake. As usual for the two, it was more of a monologue.

"Sorry Hermione, I won't tell you about the magic i used today, I'm far to tired."

"Then tell me, Viktor, why do you participate in this tournament at all? What do you hope to achieve by it?"

"Your question is too narrow, my dear Hermione. Why do wizards do anything at all? We are human, even though some may doubt it. Fame, wealth, pride - all this motivations are the foundation of our actions, too."  
Changing his tone from sombre to sarcastic, he continued:  
"Or, if you want to listen a more altruistic version, I do it to honour the great education Durmstrang can give.  
This is not about why I personally want to measure my strength against the champions of the other schools, or why I want to get the Goblet of Fire for decorating Karkaroff's office. It's simply about politics. If I win this tournament, people who like to see results and don't care about the means will send their children to Durmstrang, like always. Parents who want their children to perform beautifully and perfectionistic will send them to Beauxbaton, and the ones who believe a broad but basic education in all subjects is best for the troubled times to come will send them to Hogwarts. If I loose to Beauxbaton, we will be the laughing-stock for centuries to come. If Hogwarts wins, people will come to your school with wrong intentions and expectations, so - oh, I see we got company."

When he noticed Harry approaching them openly and also some of his friends calling for him, Viktor fastly promised Hermione to spend the the next evening in the library with her and then pretended to talk about the principles of magic from there on. Hermione understood this effort for a safe protection from gossip and joined him enthusiastically. So they parted, not for the last time hiding their feelings in public.

* * *

If Hermione was a social person, the next morning would have been a horror. Main topic of all students seemed her relationship with Viktor. Rita Skeeter had written a disastrous article in the Daily Profit, insinuating her being at least in the second month of pregnancy and trying to flee from her strict conservative parents to Krum's country of birth, Moldavia (really, was there no editor checking that articles?). Ignoring the blatant stupidity of the article and of her roommates in Gryffindor dormitory was easier than telling a perplexed Harry Potter that he couldn't become godfather, for it was more likely he was pregnant than her. Hermione found out that the disadvantage of storming off after making a huge scandal to him was that dramatic stomping off before eating breakfast resulted in hunger until lunch. At least she had the evening in the library, she soothed herself, and continued to ignore her life became more and more centered around when meeting Viktor next time.  
Classes went by and she didn't care to raise the hand, knowing the teacher would more likely ask questions to persons looking inattentive, and the most complicated ones to the cleverst student in the classroom, which was her. So why waste the time fighting for answering boring, simple questions which brought not even points? There were more pressing matters at hand. But what were they? All her attention was drawn to the lake right outside the window, making her relive her rescue and the happiness after. She would visit Viktor, just as a friend of course. Bugaria seemed like an interesting country, with untouched ecosystems full of creatures worth to be studied...  
Professor Binns didn't seem to mind her daydreaming while droning on about the history of modern wizarding banking, created by giving a job to otherwise pretty useless, asocial and aggressive creatures.

* * *

What seemed like an eternity of wasted time later, Hermione finally found her favorite quiet place in library.  
Viktor was there already, trying to hide his bloodshot eyes from a night of celebration behind a book of herbology. "What you did was one of the most advanced displays of transfiguration magic I've ever seen! Tell me, how did you do it? Which spell was it?" Hermione whispered eagerly instead of an introduction.

'Well, why did it work in the first place?' Viktor thought and doubted he would like the answer.  
'Did I just change the wand movements and had luck in the sudden metamorphosis? Unlikely, very unlikely.'  
Which lead to the true question, the one Viktor evaded to ask.  
'Have I shed enough blood when slaying the Grindylows? If not, is the promise fulfilled when I cut the merman or am I still indebted to the Dark Arts? Whom did I promised something, actually?'  
It wasn't like the Dark Arts had a personality. The problem in the Dark Arts is that they are treacherous, he reminded himself. And over centuries superstitious people tried to get a hold of them, to coax them to do their bidding. They can for unknown reason turn normal success into permanent changes, nobody knowing why.  
Being to weak to admit his failings, he lied:  
"I experimented. It could have ended bad, but as you see, it didn't. It's very, very dangerous to change a formula without knowing the result beforehand, especially if you are in a hurry. I could be in St. Mungus now for having two rows of teeth, permanently regrowing through my skin. I could have the ability to smell blood in a body of water in an incredible range. But also, I could have damaged my lungs severely. I could have a thirst for hunting, for blood, for fish or human even. It's a dangerous game, and only the best players survive it long enough to figure out at least some basic rules."  
"That was incredibly reckless!" Hermione said shocked. "Why did you forget about any basic security?"  
He just looked at her, waiting for realization to dawn. And inevitably, it came.  
"You did it for me, right?" Hermione quietly said.  
"Indeed. I had no other choice." Viktor replied.  
'Maybe the Dark Arts got what they wanted already. I consider them an option now.', he thought.

And then: 'Damn, they know!'  
Ice-cold sweat formed on his forehead and he let it drip down his face. Potter winning because rescuing two girls instead of one? Just a distraction from punishing him for quite blatantly using the Dark Arts. So that was why Karkaroff was the only one giving him full points. That was bad, from now on two of the headmasters, Maxime and Dumbledore, surely would be suspicious of his every activity. And Karkaroff would insist to intensify training.  
'Think rational! What are your priorities?' The answer was surprisingly simple. 'To get Hermione safely out of this mess. And i know there is only one way, a very simple and hard way: To stop teaching her, especially things she was never meant to know.'

Without a second glance, he got up and left. The next time they met would be on the ball, Viktor decided.

The unofficial motto of the Yule Ball seemed to be "Anderson's Snowqueen".  
One girl tried to outdo the other with precious dresses, perfected behaviour and overall haughtiness.  
White was the colour of season, and crystals, pearls or in very rare cases even diamonds the stones of choice. Most outfits were custom-made for the occasion, to show off the wealth of the family, regardless of the blood status. But it was noteworthy that even the purebloods cared more about their appearance than about their prejudices for the muggle world. Expensive creams and in an unfortunate case even a wig were used to cover the results of keeping the blood "pure" for to long.  
Their were dresses leaving few to imagination and victorian ones, renaissance mixed with dark age jewellery and created the atmosphere typical for a wizarding ball. From the outside, it looked like total chaos, but there were a million little rules restricting and directing even the most original looking combination. All of these conventions probably had just the goal to draw a line between the people on the inside, who knew and brought these rules since generations to perfection and the people outside, getting a cultural shock on experiencing them first time.

Who looked completely out of place was Hermione. No expensive jewelry was decorating her, her dress was simple, elegant and (a faux pas) cut more muggle than wizarding style. No high heels were hindering her in striding down the stairs, no complicated hair dress stopped her from turning her head fastly when looking for Viktor. It was visible she neither slept enough nor interrupted her studying for spells on decorating herself. Since the fashion dictated a "noble" paleness, she looked too browned by the sun among the artificial dolls surrounding her. Smirking slightly she wondered about the length a person could go for this occasion, not considering that in a society where people could become centuries old it was important to make a good impression from childhood on.  
She clasped her "lady bag", which contained everything she needed for such a day, filled mainly by shrunken books on transfiguration, charms and dancing. If dancing was as complicated and useless as depicted in that book, she would have enough time to read the other two. Maybe she could at least figure out which spell Viktor used at the lake, or how to fix the annoying troubles with her hair. These stemmed from one rather obscure spell she had tried on her hairs to keep them down, making them bow down like snakes and fall back in a rather simple shape. It turned out to look better than her expectations, even though she briefly wondered if this kind of magic was already Dark Arts: using a spell for a purpose it was never designed for. Side effects were that sometimes a hair wriggeld as if it had an own life before being forced back into conformity magically.  
Most people didn't notice how she came down the stairs, where Viktor awaited her already.

He stood out from the cloud of Hogwarts boys around him, wearing a uniform probably designed by the personal tailor of Tzar Peter I. and sending impervious looks around. Honestly said, most of the other boys around him who anxiously waited for their dates, looked like waiters. Their suits ranged from barista to maître d', but personnel anyway. They seemed to at least realize it, because they were fawning on their dates as soon as they showed up, and then quietly hid behind them as well as they could.

Hermione pecked Viktor to the cheek and he complimented his dress, which brought her into a cheerful mood. She didn't even try to fathom why Professor Mc Gonagal threw a stern gaze at her when declaring: "The champions to me! They have to start the ball with the first dance."

Viktor looked at her expectantly, but she slightly shook her head, so they waited. Cedric and Angelina appeared first, regretting to part with a cloud of their fans. Then Fleur and a handsome boy Hermione didn't knew more floated than walked to them, smiling with unearthly grace. This seemed to be the sign for Viktor to lead her into the queue. Finally Harry reached their group, with blushing face and barely hidden lipstick marks on his neck. His hand held a happily smiling Cho, who was wearing a sparkling white exotic dress.

The door to the great hall opened and the Champions waited a split second, taking in the beauty. Ice sculptures decorated the hall lit by a myriad of candles. There was no time to get a close look on the little orchestra playing because Professor Mc Gonagal urged them to get into their respective places. With a nod she signaled Professor Flitwick everything was set and ready. The first dance was a waltz, simple and slow. While Viktor lead her swirling around the dance floor, Hermione was relieved it needed just one good dancing partner to make her every mistake look planned and gracious. Not that she would have to worry about that, all eyes were on Fleur anyway, who danced as if she had prepared all her life for it. Her Veela charm grew exponentially when combined with her  
rather revealing outfit, and her poor partner was short from drooling. From this focus of attention profited also one certain Harry Potter, who was stumbling around and once nearly falling, eager to end that farce as soon as polite.

If anyone asked Viktor now why he participated in the tournament, he'd answer: "Because of this one dance."  
He completely forgot about his reasoning why to avoid her, he forgot any rational approach at all.

"You know, I decided on something", he whispered to Hermione's ear.  
"On what?", she replied.  
"On you." he answered shortly, leading her with precisely calculated turns out of the hall.

* * *

Outside he cast a warming charm on them and they started wandering through the gardens.  
Above them, on a cloudless sky, the stars burned brightly with ancient cold light, and the moon was small and seemed more far away than usual. The cold seemed to be tangible. When their breath passed over the boundaries of the spell, it became visible as a cloud of vapor. Loud and primitive beats of the Weird Sisters sounded through the windows of the ancient castle.  
Viktor stopped, taking in the view and watched the snowflakes dissolve around them. Without looking at her, he asked Hermione for a curl of her hair. When she agreed, he gave her a simple knife. Curious, she cut it and offered it to him.  
"Didn't i teach you of the power of such simple parts of body, independently of being offered or taken by force?" Viktor asked her with a raised eyebrow."I trust you." Hermione stated, looking him deep in the eyes.

While keeping eye contact, Viktor took his wand out in a swift move, pointed it to the curl and murmured a spell. Under his magical words, in Hermione's palm formed a silver ring. It looked not at all like being made by magic or even in the wizarding world, for it was very small and contained nothing than an engraving of "ВИTЯ" inside, which appeared to be rather engraved by a laser than by magic, especially since the letters were shaped in Times New Roman style.

Hermione looked at Viktor while thinking fastly. He was an international Quidditch star. If he wanted a serious engaging, he would buy a ring beforehand, made in white gold or platinum, wouldn't he? And a diamond! So what was this supposed to mean? Wait, this was muggle thinking. What kind of ring gave a wizard to his beloved one? She didn't knew. Then it suddenly struck her: Maybe he had just listened in her lectures for him. When she told about muggle customs, he had written all down and obviously put this knowledge to good use now. He had asked about the meaning of the materials and her personal preference, and she had answered as a scientist, completely oblivious to his intentions. So she had just sayed she wouldn't need anything precious. The ring had to be a symbol, not a prize paid. She had been honest and he took her by the word.  
"You wonder about my choice of material?"  
He lifted the ring slightly and seeing her nod, he put it gently to her ring-finger.  
"I made it from the most precious thing in the whole world."  
"Has it any magic on it?", she asked and felt her face reddening for doing so.  
"Of course", Viktor smiled knowingly, "Wear it long enough and one day a golden ring might appear.  
The magic of engagement rings is completely undiscovered yet, so lets observe this carefully!"  
He laughed quietly, but so joyful that Hermione had to join him immediately.  
"It is so unscientific", she giggled. "Performing an experiment which can not fail."

Than she took his knife and cut another strand of her hair, transforming it in the crude way her few years at Hogwarts allowed her to. A pure steel ring appeared, being layered like the hairs he originated from. Inside it was engraved with her name in ancient runes (which were more simple to transform than modern words). It already looked heavy, but weighted even more, as much as if made in massive iron. And the size was miscalculated.  
"Oh no, it's slightly to tight for your finger!", she worried.  
Grazing his skin while forcing the ring on his finger, Viktor smiled happily.  
"All is as it should be, my fiancé." He ignored the small bleeding wound and kissed her, took her hand and they went the long walk down to the Durmstrang ship together. And from there the evening went to the kind of perfection remembered until old age.

* * *

_Finished correcting most obvious mistakes in the previous uploads.  
Harry made the 2nd task two months earlier than in canon. __Dumbledore would blame it on Cho and the power of love._


	6. Last Lecture and Final Fall

******Chapter 6:** Last Lecture and Final Fall  


Hermione came home in total darkness, sneaking into the Gryffindor girls dormitory as silently as she could. Finally laying in her own bed, she decided nothing could ever make her sad anymore. This day had been worth more than all the previous days in her life. Any day should be like that, she wished, and thinking of Viktor she fell asleep.

Hermione slept nearly until lunchtime. When she stood up finally, yawning and stumbling to the bathroom, she nearly tripped over a few wrapped packages. Presents? She totally had forgotten about christmas presents! Compared to the heaps piled at the beds of her absent dorm mates, Hermione's few little gifts looked pitiful. A few candies from the girls presented out of politeness. A little plant from Neville presented out of gratitude for making him survive in Potions. It was probably rather exotic, because Hermione failed to identify it. And the last present was an expensive looking book from Harry, dealing with Ancient Runes. Scanning over the table of contents Hermione decided to probably open it in two years again, when she would have sufficient knowledge to understand it. Probably Viktor would give her something nice when they met next time, too, but it didn't matter. When she saw the ring sparkling at her finger, she was sure that she had gotten the real present already.

After taking a shower, Hermione stood a long time in front of the mirror, not applying some elaborate make-up, but lost in thought. Something changed tonight, but she didn't knew what it was. The time of secrets was over, that much was clear. Maybe it was an illusion to think her relationship with Viktor had been ever secret. But what was this change which made her feel as if a complete new fate burdened her shoulders?  
She was now engaged to an international Quidditch star. How should she behave? The old problem had been to ignore the other students whispering rumors behind her back. The new one was to directly face them about undeniable facts. At least he wasn't so old-fashioned to ask her father for her hand. Or on second thought, maybe he simply didn't care about the opinion of muggles. Oh no, her parents! Hermione noticed her parents had no way to send her presents or even a card, since she forgot to send them an owl. Berating herself on forgetting them and her overall stupidity, Hermione dressed, wrote a short letter for them and went to the Owlery. Climbing the icy stairs up to the Owlery Tower, Hermione shivered not as much from the cold as from the feeling of loneliness. Nobody of her few friends had congratulated her, and she painfully missed every little christmas tradition. It was the first "celebration" without her parents, without anyone familiar at all. At least the muggle books for Viktor had arrived just in time. For the beginning it were mostly school books about Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology. How far they could reach together, Hermione thought. The pure potential of combining science and magic was unimaginable. Yet she couldn't ignore the feeling that something was fundamentally wrong with that idea, that there was some very good reason to not mix this. Having sent the letter with a school owl, Hermione enjoyed the view over a frozen landscape. Under all this ice and snow, she knew a planet full of life waited for spring.

* * *

Ice-Skating on the Black Lake. Holding lectures for each other in Viktor's room. Holding Hands in Hogsmeade. Learning in the library together. Finding out that the Whomping Willow provided the only real privacy outside of the Durmstrang ship. Learning a bit Bulgarian language and customs. Celebrating parties in the Common Rooms. Studying for Exams. Serving detention for breaking curfew. Practicing spells and dueling, as adversaries and as a team. Kissing under a full moon on the Astronomy Tower. Reading books quietly, sitting close to each other.  
This winter with Viktor was beyond Hermione's wildest dreams. Sadly, it didn't last. Soon, far too soon came spring, and with it the final task of the Triwizard Tournament approached. The weekend before, Hermione had prepared the last lecture, like they would later call it. And if all went well, that's how it would be known by the history of mankind.

* * *

Hermione started it by writing "Dark Creatures" at the blackboard in Viktors room.  
"So what is a Dark Creature, and how do we distinguish them from mundane ones? Of course there is no proof whatsoever indicating that a whole race is evil, which is used interchangeably for "Dark", even though wizards spent centuries discussing the true nature of Dementors. Let's talk about them later. First of all let's make clear that Werwolves and all the other creatures we know from our Defense against the Dark Arts or Dark Arts class are put to that category because of their potential harmfulness to humans. This is rubbish, because it turns out that statistically most harmful to humans are humans. Therefore I conclude that all creatures, from giant Spiders to Giants, Trolls, Goblins, Elves and Centaurs, are of equal rights."

"So what about the so-called 'House-Elves'?", Viktor interrupted her, slightly smiling.

"This poor, enslaved creature? Where do you get the idea they of all things could be even remotely dark?"

Viktor got up, stretched and gestured Hermione to sit down and take notes herself.  
"Hm, why indeed. Seems I need to take over a little part of your lecture, darling. So tell me, if you would take a pure ecological analysis, what is the role of 'House-Elves' in the Wizarding World? Indeed, they are parasites. Unable to create an own living environment, they hatched onto the first species strong enough to protect them against their natural foes in exchange of quite worthless services. A wizard can do anything "his" elf does, and probably some more. So the only reason to keep them is laziness and the same good feeling mentally sick people get from having a puppy: to have someone beneath them they can order around.  
Think about it, they are magical creatures who can actually apparate into Hogwarts, charm a Bludger to attack the boy-who-lived and send people flying by simple gestures. Oh how they should have laughed when we prohibited them to carry wands. But they are as sneaky as vicious, so of course they didn't.  
They rather continue pretend to be perfect butlers, cooks and so on just to invade the houses of the powerful. And only the powerful, did you notice? They are made into some kind of status object, so nobody inconsequential would have them.  
And now I ask you - what do they want to achieve by it? Which kind of plan involves strategically placed spies and maybe even assassins in all critical points? Think about it, most carefully this time. They are organized, we are pretty sure of this. Somewhere a lot of them are sitting in one place, collecting all the information gathered by the less lucky ones. This place is Hogwarts. Probably Dumbledore struck some deal with them, when I think about it. Most families from our country are not so gullible, and most would react with beheading any elf who treads on their territory. Cruel, but effective.

So who is going to defend you, if these creatures start to rise against their 'masters'?  
There can be no thing as a "standing army" in the Wizarding World. Every wizard is armed, and the most basic curses are damaging enough. Founding an army might start an arms race, and that scenario can only be described as apocalyptic. Anyway, if you compare the Wizarding World to the one of Muggles, what do you think the "Unspeakables" do? They are not soldiers, for they operate solitary and are not in any chain of command. They could be anything: the equivalent of Muggle nuclear bombs, special operations, archeologists researching ancient, powerful magical artifacts or even just glorified secret service.

And here we are again at hour favorite topic, the way this country is run. The legislative and executive powers we discussed enough already, so lets finally focus our attention on the legal one. I'd say, forget about any legal system having not only a death-penalty, but even the Dementor's Kiss. Even if it led "just" to permanent brain damage and didn't destroy the soul, it would still be a perversion of everything what is right and just. One of the reasons for punishment is to improve the behaviour of the criminal (says Feuerbach, at least). We don't want to fall back to barbarian revenge rites, right?  
So what would you do if your government not only claims every human has a soul but also that they are willing to destroy these souls without trial? That's more evil than Voldemort ever did. He killed, but the souls passed on. The job of court (and especially of government) is not to judge the worth of souls, don't you agree?"

Hermione was speechless, and the silence after this lecture seemed to follow them quite some time. Hermione saw the signs of corruption in everything. The Daily Prophet, the lectures, their fellow students behaviour: every of them seemed to be fundamentally flawed. And this was the final fall of Hermione Granger.

* * *

"Time is running out", Hermione whispered into Viktor's ear, being moved to tears. "Tomorrow will be the last task, and if you succeed or fail doesn't matter much. Anyway, you will be gone far to soon after. Far away, all alone in a country without safety, without kindness and warmth."

"Seriously, don't become melodramatic. I'm with you and will always try to be. So don't cry until you are certain I'm dead, promise?"

Sniffing, Hermione nodded.

"Excellent. If all goes well, we meet next year at my place and stay in contact via owls. So in case I don't come back tomorrow, let's go ahead to your plan of training. Hey, remember your promise and stop crying, ok? Anyway, you know the theory and can probably quote Hasdrubal's works in your sleep. But now comes the hard part. Practice! You remember what that means, I think. First of all I warn you, it is absolutely dangerous. For really good reason it is prohibited to train the Dark Arts without mentor. The biggest problem is not if you are found out to be actually practicing Dark Magic, but what it can do to you if you are not training responsibly. You are exceptional, darling, if any witch can make it, then it is you. Here are a few pointers I can give you:

Try to stay isolated. Friends talk, which is disturbing your concentration, and they worry about you, making them check on you when you actually prefer to study something alone or experiment. Don't accept gifts, and if you do, immediately give something back in kind. Always think first, whatever you do. Judge by mind, and not by heart. The rest you need to figure out yourself, I fear. You'll become not a nice person to be around. Try to conceal that by raging about the press now and then, surely they will print something to deserve it. Don't write me anything concerning your training. This information is to sensitive for owl post. Train well, learn a lot and become strong, so that we can live together one day."

This was the way, Hermione suddenly saw. She had so long searched for any possibility to stay with Viktors forever. And here the way was, right in front of her. She felt so much in love and would do all to make this unique, special feeling last for the rest of her life. And if Hasdrubal the Heretic teached her one thing, then that a Dark Wizard's life could last for centuries. Everything necessary was just a bit of research.

"I'll be back at your side, Viktor, and stay there forever. Every step I'll take until then will lead to fulfill this promise."

Viktor listened to her vow, and he believed in her. With all his being he had wished for a different world, one which made sense, which rewarded the good and punished the evil. If he needed to install a Dark Lady to enforce that, so be it. Sacrifices are inevitable for progress, he told himself. And he would certainly sacrifice all this rotten old Wizarding World for this vision of utopia he had in mind.

* * *

_When Hermione came home after Yule Ball depends on your age. If it's above 14 it was in the morning..._  
_However, I'm not suggesting anything, so the Rating won't change._

_The original plan (when this story was labeled as "humor") was to include the house-elves as communistic: everyone gets what he needs and does what he can, being happy to work for work's sake.  
_

_My apologies if the term mankind "turns people off", as the Proofreading Program states. I believe it's wrong, since it also insists that "people" and "mankind" are synonyms. But mankind is not turned off by mankind, but turned on, that's why it still exists. Quod erat demonstrandum.  
_


	7. Rebirth

**Chapter 7 : Rebirth**

'All the points were for nothing.' Hermione stared to the hedge labyrinth, trying to shake this numb feeling by focusing only on her boyfriend. So really, what did it matter who went in first and who last? All the previous danger, all bravery had been futile. Even worse, nobody could look into the darkness awaiting the champions in there, nobody could interfere. The spectacle seemed to become rather boring with so many people just waiting for the winner to arrive. Or for the red spots signaling somebody needed help. Rather, Hermione cynically corrected, for the screaming to end if somebody really needed help and was clever enough to direct his magic to solve the problem instead of wasting precious time and energy on calling help which couldn't possibly come in time. A younger Hermione would have trusted the adults who set up this task to know what they were doing. Now all she saw were three dubious teachers sending their students to injury and risk of death for the glory of some medieval trophy. Thinking about it made her shiver. There was a man who studied and promoted teaching of the Dark Arts, a half giant woman who should be prohibited from using a wand by law and the Hogwarts headmaster, personally responsible for the death of Ronald Weasley and the injury of his younger sister Ginerva. These people shouldn't be in a teaching position or even allowed near children, but in psychological care, Hermione concluded.

Finally the speeches on how important it was to get glory for glories sake, a new trophy for the trophy room and a handsome amount of money ended and one after another the champions went into the labyrinth without looking back. 'This could be the last time i saw him!' Irrational fear overcame Hermione. What had been her last words? I love you? Stay safe? Goodbye? She didn't remember, hopefully it wouldn't matter. To distract herself from this thought, she watched the Durmstrang students cheer for Viktor. They weren't as overjoyed as the girls from Beauxbaton or creative as the Hogwarts students. Instead they started unison their monotone chanting of "Krum! Krum! Krum!", which bolstered Hermione's confidence. He would come out alive. She was certain of that. Trophy in hand or not, he would be back in her arms.

* * *

Inside of the labyrinth, Viktor was having only minor trouble circumventing the obstacles placed in his path. More important was to find out how to get to the Triwizards Cup. Probably if he could reverse an Accio spell or use it in a sonar like way - no, it wasn't time for the scientific approach. Something strange broke out of the fine green mist surrounding him. It had leathery wings, eyes like fire and approached fastly. Categorizing it as enemy, Viktor tried stunning it. Before even stepping out of the fog he realized his mistake, because the creature had shrieked in a way he didn't expect of anybody but Fleur. And of course when he stepped closer she was laying there. 'Seems the fog warps either my way of seeing or of thinking'. Viktor thought. This was his last thought in the tournament, because right then Cedric and Harry brought him down from behind and passed by, leaving their two stunned opponents and red sparks behind.

When the red sparks appeared, Hermione went to the medical tent immediately. Not because Viktor would be stupid enough to be the first out, but to see if whatever in there was dangerous enough to seriously injure somebody. Since both champions just needed to be enervated, Viktor and Hermione met halfway between stadion and tent.

"I'm out, Fleur too, doesn't take a genius to figure out who will win this tournament." Viktor said instead of a greeting. "Please come with me, they like to keep it secret to not ruin the suspense."

Hermione followed him and didn't ask if everything was wrong with him. He seemed fine enough.  
"Tell me what happened, so we might learn from it." she simply said.

"Coincidence, sweetheart." Viktor smiled "Coincidence, the only reason of happiness and sadness."

They walked at the shore of the lake holding hands and for them, the rest of the world ceased to exist.

"Don't you think we should go back? It's becoming dark."

"I just wonder why they are not searching for me" Viktor answered. "There should be a big ceremony, some speeches, a lot of unnecessary applauding and the traditional smug smiling of the headmaster of the winning school. Of course i should have stayed there, shook some hands, signed some autographs and try to look like I want to see myself in newspaper tomorrow. Or I could stay here, with you."

"I worry. Whatever it means, it is nothing good." Hermione made her point.

"Then let's go. It was wonderful, I'd say, but you know that already."

Arriving at the stadium an unexpected silence greeted them. Fallen banners of the fans and the usual waste left behind by any group of people covered the seats. Going back to the castle, they found the students in the great hall at dinner, exchanging rumors about what happened. All agreed that Harry suddenly appeared in front of the ranks, holding in one hand the Triwizards Cup and in the other Cedric Diggory. From this basic story line, a million conspiracy theories developed. The most exciting one involved Harry sacrificing Cedric to an ancient dark god, the obvious involvement of the CIA and a rare illness called "Sudden Death", derived from the "Black Death" and hundred times as deadly. First Cedric died, and then the truth.  
Luckily Dumbledore entered soon and announced that Voldemort was responsible for the death of Cedric, otherwise Harry would have to live in fear to be lynched by his own classmates on the spot after leaving the hospital wing. The Beauxbaton and Durmstrang students seemed to rather take it in stride. Understandably, it was not their country threatened by the Dark Lord yet. While Dumbledore droned on about the importance of standing united against a common enemy, Hermione calculated how much time she had until Viktor had to leave. Not enough, she realized, and decided to spend every precious second for and with him.

* * *

She had fought at Harry's side for the Philosophers Stone and for Sirius Black's freedom. Nothing left her in so much pain, such sadness like the departure of Viktor. Her stupid words to him sounded hollow to her even when she mouthed them. And his hoarse voice, dry from swearing eternal love hadn't sound convincing. To write, to meet, to never forget and never stop loving - both of them obliged the ancient rules to spout pure clichés, without any guarantee. Nothing was sure for her anymore. How can you promise that a feeling will stay? It's not as if it was a choice to begin with to love somebody, was it?  
The first day after he left, she couldn't believe the sun continued to shine normally. The second day it was annoying and at the third she took it as an insult already. Everywhere places they met appeared, full of fond memories. Always some little, unrelated event set her mood low by reminding her on what she lost that day. Couples were the worst, holding hands like she craved, kissing in public even. If she was a prefect, she would show them!

* * *

The summer holidays were close, and Hermione started to fall into a routine. Stand up, eat breakfast, get Viktors letter, go to lectures, reply him, self-study, eat lunch, self-study again and then sleep. The only excitement she got was from the studying. To show her knowledge in classes became less and less important for her, while the topics of her letters grew more and more complex. One praising word from Viktor meant more to her than even 20 points by Professor Snape ("given for successfully only answering a question when being asked to after just 4 years"), which didn't create any reaction. Additionally, training the Dark Arts seemed to form the character. Somehow Hermione wanted to record this change for scientific reasons, but the necessity to keep her research secret was higher. People got send for less to Azkaban, she reminded herself. And some didn't get send there for worse.

First of all she stopped tutoring Neville, who didn't deem himself worthy of her support in the first place. Secondly she took great care that anything she said would be logical, crystal clear rational and to the point, devoid any expression of emotion. Sarcasm and irony seemed the most promising approach. Professor Snape's way of talking she couldn't copy, his sudden changes at volume in bored drawling needed more experience and timing. Her style was faster, so her way of speaking had to become cold and sharp like ice if she wanted to advance. And to advance she had, books of dark lore waited to be learned, to be discovered and experienced. Thirdly Hermione began to work on her concealment. These changes were to drastic and sudden, probably everyone knowing about the Dark Arts would find out what she was about to do. The only obvious masking of that seemed to be puberty for her, so she started to dress in the style older girls wore, listened strange music she actually didn't even appreciate and hoped to fool anyone checking not thoroughly.

The biggest disadvantage of practicing the Dark Arts was how fast and easily she lost the connection to the last few people trying to keep contact with her. Loneliness and isolation became her permanent condition. For several years the girls sharing a dormitory with her had tried to bring the "bookworm" into their social circle. Now, with the new aloof Hermione, they finally gave up. Secretly Hermione wondered if she shouldn't be in Slytherin, since the girls of that house behaved pretty much like herself. Maybe they actually even did it for the same reasons, who knew? She should follow that idea later, after she got the theory of the Dark Arts down completely.

* * *

On one evening when Hermione was busy with her astronomy homework, an eager Harry interrupted her studies:

"Hi Hermione, long time not seen! How do you do? Like to go to Hogsmeade weekend together tomorrow?"

"We met yesterday in class, and no, I'm not a bit interested, Harry" Hermione lightly replied. "and please, call me Jeane, if you would?"

"Ok, guess I'll see you monday then", a slightly confused Harry said and left the library in haste.

Meanwhile Hermione wiped away a tear. As long as they ignored each other for their respective partners, it seemed so natural. Now the dice had fallen and she had outright rejected his attempts to stay best friends. The training would be harder than she expected. Next year she would need to find a way to practice the dark curses finally, she promised herself. It was time to reap the fruits of her hard work.

* * *

The end of the school year was remarkably weird. Seeing the boy who allegedly fought the Dark Lord being rewarded for it with a few gold coins and the Triwizards Cup had been strange already, but to see him now get house points for it and therefore Gryffindor getting the House Cup seemed like a rather surrealistic dream.  
On the Hogwarts Express Hermione sat in a compartment with some Slytherin and Ravenclaw girls, who all seemed to love reading as much as she did. It was quiet, relaxing and from the approving looks Hermione got when she came in, she was welcome here. Arriving in King's Cross station, she wished to conserve this atmosphere somehow.  
When she got out but didn't find Harry in the crowd, she tought she wouldn't see him until the start of the new term. Soon she would find out how wrong she was, but first she got to see her parents and a long summer filled by theoretical application of her new knowledge. Furthermore, she needed to learn what she could of next years theory, so that she could realize her additional plans. The Dark Arts wouldn't have any secrets from her any longer!


End file.
